West suffers lower than national average rate of business failures

Just nine per cent of the country’s corporate insolvencies last month were based in the west – with more than two-thirds of the total occurring in Leinster alone.

That’s according to the latest statistics published by www.insolvencyjournal.ie, which showed that total business failures for May totalled 116, a 25% drop compared to the total of 155 recorded in May 2012.

The total number of business failures from January to May 2013 stands at 609 compared with 742 from January to May 2012, an 18 per cent drop.

 In May, Leinster continued to be the worst affected province accounting for 68 per cent corporate insolvencies followed by Munster accounting for 18 per cent, Connacht at nine per cent and Ulster on just five per cent.   

So far this year a total of 151 businesses in the construction sector have entered an insolvency process compared with 189 for the first five months of 2012, a twenty per cent drop.

In addition, according to new findings from a survey published by the Construction Industry Federation, 63 per cent of construction companies are currently engaged in onsite construction activity.

In the retail sector there has been a total of 98 business failures from January to May this year compared to 91 in the same period last year, an eight per cent increase.

At its Annual Conference (23rd May), Retail Ireland, the IBEC group that represents the retail sector, published its Online Retailing Survey 2013 which shows that retailers are increasingly focusing on their online operations in a bid to tap into the €4.1bn online market in Ireland, which is predicted to grow to €21bn by 2017.

The hospitality sector has seen 79 corporate failures so far this year up 36% on the total of 58 for January to May 2012.

However there are some positive outcomes, most recently the sale of Ashford Castle in May securing 160 jobs. 

Commenting on the statistics, David Van Dessel of kavanaghfennell said “The outlook for the coming months is that there is likely to be a continued reduction in corporate insolvencies for the remainder of the year. 

“However, personal insolvency is expected to come to fore over the next six months and beyond.  We would also anticipate an increase in examinerships when the new legislation is passed expanding the criteria for applications to the Circuit Court hopefully making examinership more accessible for SME’s”.